AMERICAN THEATRE FEATURE

Paige Hernandez

Paige Hernandez

Profession: Performer/director/playwright/educatorHometown: BaltimoreCurrent home: Washington, D.C.Known for: Hernandez performs her original solo works, including Paige in Full and Havana Hop, and she’s created and toured 10 shows with B-Fly Entertainment, which specializes in multicultural and multigenerational shows grounded in hip-hop and education. She was among the inaugural class of Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellows and was named a Rising Leader of Color by Theatre Communications Group.What’s next: A newly commissioned piece, Stomping Grounds, blends hip-hop, spoken word, and opera to tell the story of a modern-day coffee shop fighting gentrification. The show will tour New York City this spring and have its world premiere at the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, N.Y., this summer.What makes her special: Arena Stage artistic director Molly Smith calls Hernandez the “complete artistic package, and kind and friendly on top of it. Paige performs in every discipline, writes, directs, teaches—she is great with kids and adults, and everyone in between. She is a beautifully talented and inspiring artist, and you won’t find a more genuinely lovely person.”Stagegumbo: Hernandez says her favorite theatre supports people of color in positive and unprecedented ways, conceived with “thoughtful intention that speaks to authenticity, inclusion, and equity throughout its process,” Hernandez says, explaining that she wants to challenge the state of representation in thea­tre. “I’d love to see more of my experience as an American on the stage: a gumbo of ingredients, people of all backgrounds, music, and visuals of many cultures, complicated and hopeful stories, and an oh-sooooo-fly execution.”